General Product Knowledge 27%Describe the IBM Power Systems Scale-out and Linux models, including capabilities and/or limitations.
Recognize the targeted market opportunity for the Power Systems with NVIDIA technology.
Describe the IBM Power Systems Enterprise model servers, including capabilities and/or limitations.
Describe Power Systems peripherals (e.g. HMC/Virtual HMC, I/O expansion drawers, UPS, racks, tape and/or off-line storage), and when these are recommended or required.
Given a scenario, determine which disk storage is appropriate (traditional internal disk, internal SSD, flash, or external storage).
Given a scenario, determine which operating system is appropriate (AIX, IBM i, or Linux).
Describe Power Systems Software products and their intended function, including PowerHA, PowerVM, PowerSC, PowerVC, PowerVP, PowerKVM, etc.
Describe Power Systems architecture, technologies, and operating systems capabilities which support reliability, availability and/or serviceability (RAS).
Describe the energy management capabilities of Power Systems.
Describe available I/O adapters at a high level (e.g. SAS, Flash, Fibre Channel, Infiniband, Ethernet), including those built into the system, and how they apply to current solutions.
Describe key IBM products which support cloud, analytics, mobile, security, and social workload requirements.
Describe the unique advantages that CAPI functionality brings to Power Systems solutions.
Describe customer benefits that can be provided by the OpenPOWER Foundation.
Describe customer benefits and competitive advantages that are provided by solutions aligned with the open source community.

High Level Solution Design 29%Given a set of customer requirements, determine which Power Systems server (e.g., Enterprise vs. Scale-out), operating system, applicable I/O, and systems software supports those needs.
When a client’s requirements can be met by either Scale-out or Enterprise systems, articulate the pros and cons of each approach.
Identify pricing advantages or disadvantages of running different operating systems on Power Systems (e.g., implications of IFLs, PVUs, CBUs, etc.).
Identify cost justification elements unique to a customer’s requirements (e.g., staffing, financial, software, networking, etc.).
Based on customers’ business needs, determine appropriate cloud, analytics, mobile, security, or social solutions.
Based on customer requirements, identify unique Power Systems features that satisfy business needs (e.g., reduced number of cores, FPGAs, CAPI, flash, CoD, RAS, etc.).
Determine pre-sales and pre-install Technical Delivery Assessment (TDA) requirements for enterprise systems.
Identify key elements of a POWER8 proposal that would be included in an Executive Summary.
Overcome design obstacles such as physical space, electrical requirements, training, migration issues, and time-line constraints.
Explain the purpose and uses of Hardware and Software Maintenance (HW/SWMA) at a high level.
Identify the business and processing requirements of a new or existing client, relative to Power Systems solutions.
Overcome objections which would prevent a successful sale, such as budgetary constraints, technological options (high level), conflicting customer strategies, etc.
Engage appropriate resources such as ATS, Techline, eConfig, PartnerWorld, Lab Services, Executive Briefing Center, COMP, etc.

Assessment exams are web-based exams that provides you, at a cheaper costs, the ability to check your skills before taking the certification exam.
This assessment exam is available in: Korean, Japanese, English

Passing the exam does not award you a certification, and it is only used to help you assess if you are ready or not to take the certification exam.

You can register for it at Pearson VUE and it will provide you a score report, showing you how you did in each section.

All IBM certification tests presume a certain amount of “on-the-job” experience which is not present in any classroom, Web presentation or reference material. The recommended course and reference materials will help you gain the skill and product knowledge outlined in the test objectives. They do not teach the answers to the test questions, and are not intended to. This information may not cover all subject areas in the certification test, or may contain more recent information than is present in the certification test. Reviewing/studying the course and reference materials will not guarantee that you will achieve certification.

Status: LiveThe following guidelines reflect the minimum experience and skills one should possess to achieve the credential of IBM Certified Sales Specialist – Power Systems with POWER8 V2:

Recommended Experience:Candidates must have experience in IBM Power Systems sales and / or sales support roles. The successful candidate structures solutions for customers based on their business requirements, has detailed product knowledge of the Power Systems portfolio (Scale-out and Enterprise systems), and has 12-18 months of experience assessing customer needs.

Successful candidates will demonstrate the following specific skills when proposing solutions to customers, regardless of whether AIX, Linux, or IBM i is the primary operating environment:
Detailed knowledge of the Power Systems family of POWER8 servers.
An ability to articulate the unique capabilities and benefits of the Power Systems architecture.
An ability to work with Power Systems, storage, software, and services experts in order to develop a customer focused IBM solution based on the customer’s business needs and constraints.
An understanding of the unique characteristics that AIX, Linux, and IBM i operating systems provide and require on Power Systems.
An understanding of the benefits that can be achieved with IBM Power Systems software products such as PowerVM, PowerVC, PowerHA, PowerSC, PowerVP, etc.
An understanding of IBM product and services offerings for big data, analytics, cloud, mobile, social, and security solutions on POWER8 servers.
An ability to successfully position Power Systems products against competitive products and solutions, such as those from Oracle, HP, Cisco, x86 server vendors, and competitive storage vendors.
An awareness of tools and resources available to complete a proposal.
The ability to identify the elements of a complete and successful proposal.
An ability to effectively manage customer relationships, such as responding to objections and understanding the role of the Technical Server Specialist in the sales process.

QUESTION: No: 1
A customer plans to implement a web-based solution that requires 34 Power cores. They want to acquire
a POWER8 solution with the best TCA .
Assuming all other configuration requirements are equal, which solution provides the best TCA?

A. Two S824s
B. One E870
C. One S822
D. Three S814S

Answer: A

QUESTION: No: 2
What elements of POWER8 technology can be explogted by software developers to optimize performance
on an E870?

QUESTION: No: 3
Which of the following is required to run IBM Cloud PowerVC Manager?

A. AIX
B. VIOS
C. Linux
D. IBM i

Answer: D

QUESTION: No: 4
A customer needs to update their Linux applications and is comparing Power to x86 solutions.
What benefit can be highlighted to demonstrate the value that POWER8 offers compared to x86
solutions?

A. POWER8 offers faster processor speeds.
B. POWER8 offers more sockets and cores per server.
C. PowerVM is more secure than VIVIware.
D. POWER8 offers four times the number of threads per core than x86.

Answer: C

QUESTION: No: 5
Which of the following RAS features is available on POVVER8 Scale-out